UGC tells universities to make admission, fees, other details public; drafts checklist of disclosures

NEW DELHI: To ensure transparency, the higher education regulator University Grants Commission has directed universities to publish a set of information on their websites and furnished a checklist of such “mandatory disclosures”.

The universities, according to the UGC, will be required to make updated information and documents such as annual reports, accreditation and ranking, institutional development plans, administrative profiles with photographs and overviews public on their websites.

Academic information like programmes, academic calendar, departments or schools, libraries will also need to be updated by the higher educational institutions. Admission and fee related details like prospectus, admission guidelines, fee structure and fee refund policy will also need to be furnished on the respective websites.

According to the UGC chairman, Jagadesh Kumar, several university websites lacked the basic minimum information or the website was not functional causing “inconvenience to the stakeholders”.

“Of late, different stakeholders in the Higher Education System like prospective students, parents, research scholars, government officials, alumni and public at large desire to seek certain basic information from the websites of different universities/HEI’s. We have found that the websites of several universities lack not only in providing basic minimum information related to their university but also at many times their websites are not functional and updated,” said Kumar.

“At this defining moment when we are celebrating the third year of National Education Policy 2020 it would be prudent to desire from the universities to provide basic minimum information and updated content on their website. We have prepared a checklist of this information to be provided by the universities on their websites,” Kumar further added.

The UGC has also sought information on research and development cells, patents, publication and foreign collaborations, industry collaboration to be updated on the website.

For students’ benefit, the website will have to show updated information on fellowships scholarships, academic bank of credits, Digi Locker NAD Portal along with the National Scholarship Portal. The UGC plans to make the checklist public for comments and suggestions soon.